Urban agriculture

What Is Urban Agriculture Anyway?

As a country girl who grew up on an organic vegetable farm, I didn’t really understand the concept of urban agriculture at first. Hello clichés, but for me, agriculture is green, it’s vast, it’s big fields, tractors, collecting rocks… that sort of thing. Cities, on the other hand, are all roads, buildings, concrete and tar, suburbs and fast-moving people.

Photo: Juan Felipe Ramírez

I’ve changed my mind

If you take a closer look at a city, you’ll see gardens, beehives and chickens on the roofs of some gray buildings, at the bottom of asphalt streets and even near highways. If you look up, you’ll see vegetables basking in the sun and bees foraging on flowering rooftops. Life abounds, and not just in the cracks of concrete. The people are warm, colorful, passionate and just as hard-working as those of my childhood. What strikes me most about the city is its diversity. Yes, the city is truly a heterogeneous ecosystem, just as urban gardens are overflowing with biodiversity.

Photo: Arthur Brognoli

Another Fascinating Observation

The city is a far cry from the harsh agriculture of my childhood. Instead, gardening is multifunctional, calming and practised for a variety of health-related reasons. Several studies have recognized the mental and physical health benefits of gardening. Researchers have shown a drop in cortisol levels (the hormone that causes stress) in people who garden.

Gardening also has a beneficial effect on anxiety and the prevention of chronic diseases and cancers.

Photo: Maggie My Photo Album

The practice also significantly improves nutrition, as well as increasing physical activity and time spent outdoors. Contact with the earth and with certain bacteria stimulates our immune system.

While I’m gardening, all around me, the world comes to a standstill. My garden is like the city! In front of me, this infinite city is silently, or almost silently, defining and activating itself. A germ unfurls towards life, pushing the earth gently, slowly. A patient bumblebee waits to take flight in the warmth of the sun. Dewdrops sparkle in the morning, like a cascade of purity. Tiny ants are ready to give their lives for the fatherland. Hordes of aphids abound. Minutes pass, the sun spins, and I’m still here, contemplating this waltz of life, so tiny in the infinite.

So… What Does Urban Agriculture Consist of in Winter?

When I looked around town more closely, I saw bright lights in the windows: stuffed mushroom beds, verdant micro-sprout farms, towers and walls of crisp lettuces and herbs. All in the middle of winter!

Mélodie grew up on an organic market garden farm in the forest north of Lac Saint-Jean, where she had both hands in the soil and a passion for biodiversity. After moving to the city, she completed a degree in arts, literature and communications, and gained 15 years' experience in event organization for a health and social services organization. Since March 2022, in peri-urban and permaculture mode, she has navigated between her large vegetable garden and her many duties at the Conseil régional de l'environnement - région de la Capitale-Nationale. After working as a communications officer and executive assistant, Mélodie devotes her energy and passion to the projects of the Réseau d'agriculture urbaine de Québec.

2 comments on “What Is Urban Agriculture Anyway?

  1. Urbanization of the Santa Clara Valley was saddening to witness. I have not problem with urban situations, but it is saddening that very few of the million or so who now live in San Jose are aware that the surrounding Santa Clara Valley was formerly famous for orchard production. Many years ago, home gardening was still popular, likely partly because agriculture was part of local culture. Modern homes now have tiny garden spaces, if any at all, and are shaded by huge houses and other buildings. Not many people go outside. Almost all pay gardeners to mow their unused but overly irrigated lawns. It is such a foreign lifestyle.

  2. Lovely article and so true!

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